Martin Luther's 95 Theses
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2017
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When German monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saint's Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517, he started a religious revolution. The document was about the church's practice of selling indulgences - but Luther's protest would grow into the Protestant Reformation. Witness hears primary sources from the time, and speaks to historian Lyndal Roper.
(Photo: A portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder on display at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, Germany (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
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| 0:36.0 | Hi and thanks for downloading Witness, the History Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Lucy Burns and today we're going back to the 31st of October 1517 |
| 0:47.6 | when a German monk called Martin Luther published a document which would start a religious revolution and end in the reformation of the Christian Church. |
| 0:57.0 | The legend is that Martin Luther published his 95 theses by nailing them to the door of All Saints Church in Vippenbach in what's now Eastern Germany. |
| 1:12.0 | Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, |
| 1:16.0 | the Reverend Father Martin Luther, |
| 1:18.0 | Master of Arts and Sacred Theology, |
| 1:20.0 | and ordinary lecturer therein at Wittenburg intends to defend the |
| 1:24.6 | following statements and to dispute on them in that place in the name of our |
| 1:29.2 | Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. He probably didn't nail them to the door, but I'm afraid he probably glued them. |
| 1:36.5 | I mean if you think about it, late October, outside door, and what happens to paper when you |
| 1:42.3 | put a nail through it, I think it is more likely |
| 1:44.7 | that he pasted them. |
| 1:46.3 | Lindel Roper is a history professor at Oriel College Oxford and author of the biography |
| 1:51.9 | Martin Luther, Renegade and Prophet. |
| 1:55.0 | The 95 Theses are an amazing extraordinary document because on the face of it they're set |
| 2:01.0 | out as a set of academic theses. They're set out as things you could debate. |
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